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Alex and I often discuss who we think could best help us carry on our genetic legacy. The obvious choice is one another, but our brains are so similar (owing to our being born on the same day) that making a child would be sort of redundant. Besides, we'd really like to get some strange DNA in the mix, and choose candidates who would add something worthwhile to our empire.

Now that we've had to temporarily shut down The Whores Of Mensa (our lucrative escort service), we've had more time to focus on these major issues. In order to work through some of our problems, our couples therapist Gabriel Byrne has had us draw up these lists of the top five people we are allowed to cheat/make a baby with within the tenets of our bohemian open poly-partnering.

1. Dylan Moran

To be sure, despite being half-Mick myself, I don't normally like Irish men. I am completely immune to the charms of Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson. I love Daniel Day-Lewis and Cillian Murphy, but I don't find them sexually magnetic per se. They're like beautiful art objects. There can be something wan and underfed about Irish actors. The best example being Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.

That said, I think (Irishman) Dylan Moran is the pinnacle of Hotness. That's because his show, Black Books, is hilarious. His character Bernard Black, (proprietor of the barely operating used book shop the show is named for) is like a composite of equally beloved misanthropes Alan Rickman, Richard E. Grant, and Larry David. He is "oddly, pointlessly, argumentative" much like all my favorite people (and me). In short, Dylan Moran is perfect.

"Youth leaks from you. It doesn't leave a note or slam the door. You're just left there older, with dead spiders for eyes and fire-retardant hair"

Dylan describes his pre-show ritual:

On the day of a show, I rise early to do no more than (but rarely less than) four or five thousand squat thrusts, wearing a yoghurt poultice over my face in a specially adapted bath, before a few rounds of kickboxing with Fnolf, my live-in trainer. Because my family and I live on the Shetland Isles there is always a bracing breeze around our outdoor pool. Fnolf and I generally have a bit of a splash and dive down to the bottom to pick up doubloons with our teeth.

Round about mid-morning, I might get a bit wobbly thinking about the show, so once the kids are strapped into their speedboats by Nong, their nanny, my wife and I like to relax by rolling on piles of banknotes in our giant humidor. Then I see my therapist for a while for Thoughtshare.

After therapy it is best to nap. I often dream I am running from my own eye sockets into a larger head which is also mine and yet not – it can’t be, it isn’t nearly as pretty. Once I get there, I get terribly mad, screaming over and over because I have to live there with substandard room service.

For tea we might just toss up a salad of samphire and sprats. I gargle crème fraiche on the way to the show while Nong and Fnolf blow on my elbows. Once in the dressing room there’s no time to think. A quick skoosh of Playzurre, my own brand perfume. I flex my face in a face-flexing machine. Then I am on. Just like that. I can only do what I do, which is be me at my best without any thought for myself. Hey, it’s probably the same for you!

[Moran] tries to avoid writing ideas down, though. 'Paper acts as an eraser on the mind, as soon as you look at what you've written,' he says. 'You can delude yourself that you can capture things in the notebooks and jotters you leave lying around in case you get that 2 am feeling of: "That's it! That's it!" Then you wake up and what you've jotted is meaningless bollocks: "shed, rabbit, bike." But, at the time, you laughed yourself back to sleep.'

"Religion is the yeast of death cakes. It is the most awful agent on a vulnerable mind. It's the refuge of alienated and lonely people. It's what people had before television. It yokes people together into an imaginary world. It is just people talking to their imaginary friends, at length. I wouldn't mind, but some of the people are world leaders."

"Male genitalia are so depressing to look at: like bagpipes covered with hair."

"The French are so decadent: they start their day with chocolate bread and by lunchtime they're fucking everything that moves. Even the word 'boulangerie' is fun to say."

"I don't do drugs. If I want a rush, I just stand up when I'm not expecting it."

"Contrary to everything you have ever heard, performing comedy is the easiest job in the world bar none."

For his top choice of surrogate baby mama Alex chose Baby Mama star and This Recording megacrush, Tina Fey. He has my total blessing, even though I know he just chose her so I'd give him a pass on Rachel Weisz. I like how Darren Aronofbergsteinplatz turned Evan Rachel Wood into a doppelganger of his wife Weisz for his new film The Wrestler. Can't be worse than The Fountain, right?

1.Tina Fey (he said "post-plastic surgery" but I feel like photoshop is more or less the same thing.)

Fey grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Upper Darby, Pa., the daughter of a college grant writer and a housewife. She was funny from the start. At 7, she drew a picture of two people holding hands and carrying wedges of Swiss cheese, with the caption: “What a friend we have in cheeses."

Tina on her busy lifestyle:

Fey smiles wearily. “It’s very full,” she says. “But I would be lying if I said there were not tears involved at home occasionally—just occasionally. Last spring, my husband was trying to joke around with me. I was saying, ‘Please stop talking. I’m trying to go to sleep,’ and he kept talking. Out of the blue—he still mentions it, that I had the most terrifying look on my face—I just went, ‘Stop it!!!’ and shoved him across the bed. The life of the working parent is constantly saying, ‘This is impossible,’ and then you just keep doing it.”

2. Eva Mendes (child would be Obama-replica model)

3. Rachel Weisz

4.Leaving Las Vegas period Elisabeth Shue

5. Brittany Murphy (he must just really like the last name Murphy, because I cannot for the life of me explain this one)

alex's passion for the insane knows no bounds

We might throw some of Danish's swimmers in there too just for giggles. I asked Danish who his ideal mates were and he gave me this oddly balanced listicle:

Bernard: I've got to get a girlfriend, just for the summer, until this wears off. She'll be a summery girl. She'll have hair. She'll have summery friends who know how to be outside. She'll play tennis and wear dresses and have bare feet, and in the autumn, I'll ditch her, because she's my summer girl!

It's embarrassing to admit when you cry. After all, this blog has redefined masculinity for a whole new generation. We've shown countless times that we are unafraid to comment on things that the culture considers feminine- Jews, Joanna Newsom, Douglas Coupland, Sarah and Jimmy. I never really used to cry. I'd cry when I was particularly angry, before I became able to control my anger. But eventually life dulled into a unending sequence of unrelated events and experiences that mostly existed on the Internet.

2006: Melinda Doolittle singing on American Idol. God knows I never thought I'd ever watch American Idol, let alone start crying because of it, but hey, we all get older, haven't you heard that Stevie Nicks song? I have never heard this song, nor do I know who The Wiz are, but this cute tiny woman with a massive voice getting so into it and being so overwhelmed by what's going on...too much. Too much for me, people!

I've been afraid of changing because I built my life around you

Six years ago: Harry Potter hugging the big dude. Few things get my tearsacks flaccid like orphans. The first Harry Potter was a little unexpected, and when they broke out Harry hugging Hagrid at the end, and you knew that he had no parents. WTF mate. I may have been really, really hungover, but that was tough. Orphans. Just...orphans.

Robert "Iron Man" Downey Jr. gets nude and cries

Dave Matthews' guest appearance on House. Matthews played this autistic piano genius. Spoiler alert, House has half his brain removed and he actually isn't autistic and he learns how to button his shirt. Hey, Rain Man was sad, too.

November 4, 1995: Yitzhak Rabin dies. I hate politicians as a general rule, but no nation has more inspiring ones than Israel. Rabin was a good man, if naive. If I'd been around during the JFK deal, I would have been sad, but JFK was a douchebag who cheated on his wife, so how sad could I have been? In Israel there's a lot more at stake than in the U.S., too. I never have to worry about the U.S. going anywhere, but Israel's existence may never not be in question. Props to David Ben-Gurion. Nice work there.

Last year: The Up Series. This seven part British documentary that follows the lives of a group of children introduced at 7 is one of the saddest things ever put on television. It may also be one of the greatest things ever done in the documentary form. It's really, really sad.

Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson cries

Somewhere around the year 2002, Spiritualized. The greatest band in the world has made me cry countless times I'm sure. I was fortunate to see them live once when they hit Providence for whatever reason. Naturally I bawled like a baby.

Last weekend: WALL·Eforgets who he is: He forgot about his favorite movie and his favorite videotape, and he forget about the interrobot sex he was going to have with the recovery unit. Also, he's not happy about having to share his trailer with the guy who did the voice for the Captain.

Tim Roth cries

May 23, 1999: Owen Hart dies on PPV. I didn't shell out money for wrestling PPVs back when I was into it, but I was following the results on 1wrestling when a massive newsflash popped up. Hart died trying a stupid stunt in which he was to come down from the roof of Kemper Arena in Kansas City. He fell on his head and died instantly. He was so young, and such a great person. So sad. The next night they did a Tribute show, and that may have been the most emotional two hours of my young life.

Ed Harris cries

March 28, 2006: Arrested Development is gone for good. The show that redefined the sitcom and created so many top jokes: never nudes, Mr. Reinhold's Courtroom, hey hermano, have sex right now, Ann, The Man Inside Me, analrapist. This:

Lucille: Michael Moore confronted me on national television.Michael: First of all, that was not Michael Moore. That was a Michael Moore look-alike. And second it wasn't national television. It was for a bit, on Jimmy Kimmel Live.Lucille: I don't know what that is nor do I care to find out.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He is probably crying right now. Wait, now. Now. Please share your favorite tear-jobs in the comments.

I know this is weird but for some reason the shape of her head and boobs reminds me of the head lice from that episode of South Park.

kelly!

Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Sarah Silverman Show share roughly the same plane of "It's funny, but what is it intended to be funny about?" I liked the Trapped in the Closet parody they did a lot:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExFIL_H3QQ8]

Jimmy's interview skills always make him seem like a sexual predator. I think we can pretty much assume that she was just dead tired of fucking him. At the same time, it was probably a relief for him to not have to listen to that 800th joke with her pretending to be a racist. She is the comedic equivalent of the Barack Obama New Yorker cover.

Full coverage of this in our forthcoming article on the intricacies of your next public divorce.

Apologies in advance for this post, my attention span has been in absolute shambles lately.

I can't really name any of their song titles, but the Twilight Sad record has dominated a lot of our year. As far as current stuff goes, there's this artist called Leona Lewis in the UK, who released this great single. The rest of her album sucks really bad, but I think she's just kind of reaching over to the U.S. I wouldn't expect Pitchfork to cover her because she's a total r&b kind of artist, but she released this one great song called "Bleeding Love", which I really liked. It had kind of dark lyrics for pop music.

We don't keep up to date with current trends, just whatever comes to our ears, so we've been listening to TV on the Radio. "Wolf Like Me" was one of those that really got me. We listen to a lot of pop music. That kind of is really important to us to get a kind of pop grounding in our melody. We're not lucky enough to have a CD player, so we listen to the radio. It's a lot of pop chart stuff.

I just heard and really liked this great record by the Born Ruffians. Our tour manager had it on the van. There's this Scottish band he played us as well, called Close Lobsters. I'd never heard of [them], and Americans tell me about this band who came from my country [laughs]. They almost made it sound really like Echo and the Bunnymen and the Cure and stuff like that.

About five weeks ago we were about two hours from running a cover of Obama in a Brooklyn Dodger's uniform, sliding into home. And his number was #42. And anyone with even a little bit of knowledge of baseball history knows this is Jackie Robinson. So this was kind of a turn on Obama being the Jackie Robinson of American politics - in a way - and no doubt people on the Obama campaign would not have found it offensive — they would have immediately understood what we were trying to say, that Obama had jumped an enormous historical barrier. The only reason I yanked it was because it turned out someone had already done this, used this image on some political baseball cards. So I unfortunately held back that really good image…

JV: Real person. real name. I won't divulge too much, but it's not a fake name. And it's not a fake person. I guess that's the best answer I can say: It's not a fake name and it's not a fake person. But it's not her real name and it's not a real person either. Do you get what I'm saying? If it wasn't for this person's privacy, I'd be able to talk pretty freely about this subject on a personal level. The record's about not her. It's about my struggles through years of dealing with the aftermath of lost love and longing and just mediocrity and just bad news, like life stuff. And in the [record], where the title comes from, the lyrics are actually a conversation between me and another girl, not this Emma character.

i dont know what has changed over the past week, but i’ve been thinking about him alot. and in a different way. i blew him off all weekend without a second thought, but the momenti started my drive home i regretted my brusqueness and all i could think was how much i wanted to see him. we’re going to dinner tomorrow after my pop pop’s funeral.

last night i found myself thinking about him as i fell asleep, and then i dreamt that i blew him off one more time and he told me he never wanted to speak to me again, and i felt lost and sad and empty without him.

Barack Obama makes me feel good to be a black man. Just seeing him up there representin' intelligently and really knowing what he talking about and defending his shit even when they try and shoot at him. The old president and baby girl -- Bill and Hill -- they tried to double-wop on him -- boo bop. But he have enough game to get out of that.

A dream can be most anything. I dream of the day when I'll get this image out of my mind:

I think most of us who followed Playboy in perhaps its finest year, 1994, remember the debut of one Jenny McCarthy. The whole Catholic schoolgirl thing with her could never get played out. And now she's acting like she's all into Jim Carrey because it seems cool. It is not cool.

As we put it some time ago, this couple — Jim Carrey & Jenny McCarthy — reminds us of The Office, when Jan gets with Michael and is like, “My therapist told me to trust my instincts.” Jim Carrey’s therapist was like, “Don’t worry about what your friends think, if you have fun when you’re with her, that’s all that matters, really,” and he was like, "You’re right. I have to admit I’m attracted to her," and Jenny was all like, "Helllloooo I’m in the room."

I accidentally saw Don't Mess With the Zohan, which some people said was funny. Although it had its moments, I think they were probably expecting something so excruciating the film was a relief in comparison. When you make a film about the conflict, and no Israelis or Palestinians get it on with each other, you know you have a problem. Is there Israeli-Palestinian porn? Dare I even ask that question?

The Bachelorette last night was the best finale of the show ever, though that's not saying much. They got it right with both men proposing, and DeAnna having to level a harsh blow to the dude with the three-year old. He's going to get SO much action now. I need to get me a three-year old.

As for DeAnna, good choice, but why is it that the two spurned Bachelorettes who would love clicked with needy, dorky losers?

We can only hope our TR readership is not in the office right now. No, they're probably huddled over their XBoxs, or sipping on cocktails at the Beatrice Inn. As Molly once said in TR's infancy, "You really need to stop posting pics of hotties." She may not have used the word hotties. But the point was to have something we can all enjoy, whether we're super nerdy (Danish) or the most prolific bloggeur of a generation. We return to the age when the human nipple was a constant rather than a distant memory...

Something holds on, or makes out of holding on. A person stays hidden, but a photograph is for real. You meet and fuck Todd Rundgren.

I see you! Reaching over and picking up a piece on paper, on which is written your name.

Buell left home in 1972 to launch a modeling career in New York. "Girls who wanted to be stars went to New York," Buell writes, capturing some of the dazzling brashness of her youth. "I wanted to be a superstar! The problem was that everything was too easy - modeling, traveling, partying - and I forgot my original desires and beliefs."

Only the beautiful may relax. She may kick and back and say, "This is beautiful." The rest are walking around asking, "When will we be beautiful?" To be a one as this is shocking, sinking. A lot of people get involved.

"She's beautiful!" "She could be more beautiful!" "We will make her more beautiful!" and so on until the night.

Men are casual but purposeful, steadying themselves, like a dog digging in against the wind. I was one of the other ones. Men could be talking to themselves. Who cares? They were men, the tiny pawns of the photo. The ones taking it.

There was only one way to strike back. In alleyways, in cramped closets. Naked in stockings or high socks.

A man is saying something so well, but a woman is standing next to a guitar. Beyond that something more is felt, but could never be described.

She is braver this way.

And apart from that, there is a saying. Apart from that, there is a talking to. We can't hear, but the sound is there.

The child is born. Out of us, the child stands tall and walks around like it is another person. Watching it.

Go on, dear. Take a photo with the child.

The child asks, "Who is in this photograph?" This is the only question she asks for which you have an answer.

Still there are times to be alone. These:

Later in life there is a talking back. Time had advanced, and with it the complicity of its passing. Man and werewolves were granted certain privileges. In the future there is nothing but this.

or standing:

Why complicate life? One is standing, or sitting, or sitting down. People are upright or seated. A man is accosted or he is the pursuer. A woman may stand next to a man, or seated. Bebe Buell is in this photograph. She is lying down.

Barclay Memphis was the inaugural This Recording intern. He now works in P.R. for a large investment firm, and has no time for the rest of the world. He lives in Williamsburg.